


feelings are fatal

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Series: FFXIV Write 2019 [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, FFXIVWrite 2019, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Love, Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 22:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: Hydaelyn holds no love for an unruly Champion.





	feelings are fatal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagitekUnit05953234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/gifts).

> For FFXIVWrite 2019!
> 
> Day 8 | Free Day
> 
> Tumblr post here: https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/post/187583018339/ffxivwrite-2019-prompt-8-feelings-are-fatal

_ “You have a beautiful smile. Try not to forget mine.” _

It’s the sound of a memory too faded to be rewound without the telltale distortion of centuries on repeat that wakes them. It’s like listening to those newfangled orchestrions from three rooms down through an inn room wall. Muffled. Indistinct. 

_ Intimate,  _ somehow. 

The Warrior scrubs a hand over their face and clutches their coat tighter about their shoulders with the other. Coerthan blizzards are not forgiving, but neither is their destiny. They return here, lifetime after lifetime, just to see him hale and whole once more. They’d committed a transgression once and for that they’d been punished by the Mothercrystal herself.

Changing fate is not the job of sundered mortals and their fraudulent machinations. It’s the realm of a goddess in her prime.

The Warrior of Light, savior to Eorzea and slayer of Eikons, was not supposed to love. This is something Hydaelyn decided in the centuries she watched over their many fragments. For every person they loved, they would undoubtedly lose their life in pursuit of their protection.

The moment She saw the easy way they went to war for some Ishgardian soldier like he was their king (and Her word turned to nothing but sermons only fit to be obeyed on a Sunday), she knew he would need to die before he forced the Warrior to take a sword to the chest for the eighth time this millennia. 

Haurchefant Greystone would need to die.

Hydaelyn tried many times to have him smited, but every time it only made their dearest Champion take the damages instead. She had been happy to have them in her fold, a devoted worshipper worthy of her blessing, until they began to  _ feel.  _

She knew they had loved just as fiercely before swearing themself to her service. It was no secret that they were (and still are) unfalteringly altruistic. She had hoped the millennia may have broken them if it and left them blessedly safe.

She nearly believed the last calamity  _ had  _ and then Haurchefant smiled at them like they were a warm hearth after hours on patrol and she knew he would only be trouble. 

She protects her Champion well. Shiva is a bare imitation of the true Saint, but Hydaelyn gives Ysayle credit for her kindness. Humans are not so often as compassionate as her favored one.

It’s laughable when that knight feels he should chase after them, being held back by no fewer than half a dozen knights and a couple squires. What could he do for them, truly? Become Tempered and lay a hand on Her beloved Warrior? Hydaelyn would return him to the life stream before that could happen.

She notices them falling for him ever faster, not unlike a snowball. It’s worrying, but she knows of the war between man and wyrm. Given time, he will die. She settles down and waits.

It takes months, but her wish comes true with a bolt from the blue.  _ How beautiful,  _ she thinks, at the sight of his soul.  _ I pity you, dearest child mine. They have never been yours. _

And for the first time in millennia, the Warrior of Light lives past the bitter bite of a shattered heart. They pick up a sword the size of their body, instead, and Hydaelyn knows she made a mistake. 

They are  _ Her  _ acolyte. She is the mother of all things—She who controls the cycle of rebirth—and they have no right to be angry with her for  _ protecting  _ them.

They are, though, and she has never had much love in her heart for an unruly Champion. No matter how they beg for his life, to give up all that they are just to see him one more time, She turns away and ignores their prayers.

_ Be grateful to me. I have delivered you from another early grave. _

They are not. Even years later, with Light spilling from their soul, they yearn for him. They die, that time, and she simply soothes the shattered pieces of them back into some semblance of a whole and sends them back, never noticing the bits of aether they take back with them.

The cycle continues with the Warrior of Light surviving what they know has truly killed them hundreds of times over, each time patching bits and pieces of blue-tinged aether into their own. They wait until it feels nearly like being packed into a body that is not their own, their mortal form too full to fit quite right, and bring him back.

Pouring their aether into him along with the stolen fragments of his soul, they hope it will work. They crushed a Phoenix Down over the casket, feeling it heat beneath their fingers, and reverently whispered matrixes and spells under their breath. He breathes it in like the empty shell of a body they’d reconstructed with firey aether was  _ aching  _ to be allowed another chance. Hydaelyn watches them and sighs, her displeasure pulsing through them in visions of his death mirrored over their own. They should have listened. 

Reaching outward, She allows the Warrior their wish and watch their love come back to life. Then, She takes them back into her fold with a flash of aether and a twist of fate.

She sets them back in time, a newbie once more, and reminds in the destruction of that which they love that  _ She  _ is who they obey. Their heart is such an inconsequentially stupid thing to heed.

But they listen to it in every lifetime and leave Hydaelyn to strip them of memory and ability time and time again lest She wish to see them die for him. They never regret and never repent. She nearly feels bad about being so strict about her protection of their life, but ya for their own good.

Of all her devotees, they are the most powerful. She can not afford to lose them. Instead, She watches them wake for the thousandth time to the vague memory of his voice.

**Author's Note:**

> [blows a kiss @ my mug of cocoa] that's for u, haurchefant
> 
> xiv tunglr | https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/  
main | https://kiriami-sama.tumblr.com/  
main | https://twitter.com/flamingacekiri


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